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If our Civilization somehow manages to discover FTL travel within the next decade

D

darkxshade

Lifer
How do you see our future after that playing out? Assume this technology was discovered indirectly and as a result, every country in the world had access to the schematics.

Do you see this as a world unifying event (like in Star Trek)? Or would we still war with each other?

Would countries go their separate ways and we ultimately still war with each other on a galactic scale?

Would we conquer/destroy alien races that we encounter just like how alien races try to conquer us as depicted in movies? ... but of course we'd succeed, it's the human way!

Or do we simply just continue to fail and sit on our hands while we bicker about money or how to finance such an endeavor?
 
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A lot of the answers to these questions depend on how difficult it is to do. Even in Star Trek, starships are unimaginably expensive to build, and the antimatter required to build the warp engines is rare.

Assuming that's the case, while everyone may have access to the schematics, only a few nations would have the resources to actually build them. For the first few years, IMO, the U.S. and Japan would have space programs on steroids but it wouldnt go much further than that for a while. It certainly wouldn't be a unifying event. If anything, it would provoke more jealousy and resentment.

Also, I'm not a believer in life on other planets so the alien question for me is moot.
 
Also, let me add that FTL travel doesnt mean that all the sudden we're headed to Alpha Centuari. The propulsion system might work, but we'd still have to figure out all the other stuff. 4 years is a long time to be in space, and that's just to get to the closest star, nevermind a return trip, or a voyage to any other system. Life support, consumables, raw materials for construction, etc.

FTL travel would result in some really awesome pictures but manned missions outside the solar system would still be a ways off.
 
If it's just some tech that's found, I don't think it would be likely economical to explore other places for a long time. There's the whole issue of starting up a new industry to make giant starships, mapping out the rest of the universe, etc. It's really expensive to explore other worlds and based on the US's track record with NASA cuts and science in general, I don't see much happening.

Right now, there's nothing really out there that's awesome enough to get people to unify to get. If there was a planet made of solid gold or something out there, everyone would go to war to get the resources there.

As far as war, there's no question, we'd just go to war with each other and other races. Humans really haven't evolved past petty fighting for whatever issues, including religion, money, resources, genocides, etc. Giving someone awesome tech doesn't really change the basic nature. If anything, giving people better tech just makes war more effective at killing.
 
Kadarin said:
Humanity would still wage war; anyone who believes otherwise if a fucking idiot.
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Personally, If we went into space with FTL, I think war will continue on Earth. I don't think it would continue in space. Space is so unimaginably large, and if each country set up a colony on a different planet in a different solar system, it would take centuries for those colonies to grow to such and extent that they would have to move on to other worlds for raw materials.
 
JeffreyLebowski said:
Personally, If we went into space with FTL, I think war will continue on Earth. I don't think it would continue in space. Space is so unimaginably large, and if each country set up a colony on a different planet in a different solar system, it would take centuries for those colonies to grow to such and extent that they would have to move on to other worlds for raw materials.
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That depends on outside factors that we don't know yet: Will there be alien species that don't want us to expand our cultures? How scarce are planets that effectively support humanity (note that a planet could have a hostile biosphere)? What is the mechanism for FTL, and do its costs increase dramatically the farther one travels?

Remember also that FTL in this case could also mean punching wormholes to other planets, not necessarily building ships to get us there.
 
chihlidog said:
Also, let me add that FTL travel doesnt mean that all the sudden we're headed to Alpha Centuari. The propulsion system might work, but we'd still have to figure out all the other stuff. 4 years is a long time to be in space, and that's just to get to the closest star, nevermind a return trip, or a voyage to any other system. Life support, consumables, raw materials for construction, etc.

FTL travel would result in some really awesome pictures but manned missions outside the solar system would still be a ways off.
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4 Years is just barely faster than light. I don't think OP had that in mind.
 
feralkid said:
4 Years is just barely faster than light. I don't think OP had that in mind.
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My opinion wouldnt change much even if we're talking significantly faster than light. For the first few years, perhaps first few decades, we would get some unbelievably awesome photos from FTL probes, but I dont think we would be able to send manned missions for a while after.
 
China would probably help the US and then evict them from Earth. They basically own half the planet and its money now and the US is so far in debt to them its crazy.
 
Would at first mean sending numerous probes to see what worlds were habitable by people.
Then exploitation of those planets would begin.
 
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